After spending 5 days in my village, it's time to take my husband to see our beautiful captial city. It would be really interesting for him as he just experienced the life in a rural village so he can see how much difference it can be to live in a big and crowded city like Hanoi.
From my village, we took a shuttle bus to the city. We had 4 days and 3 nights to explore the capital city so we booked a hotel that close to the centre. After dropping our luggage to the hotel, we hopped on another taxi to go and meet my best friend. As soon as I told her I am visiting home, she decided to take some days off work so she could spend times with us. I felt really lucky to have her with me as I lost my ability to cross the streets in Hanoi. I was overwhelmed with everything. Just felt like old times when I first left my village to come to this big city.
Me trying to figure out where to go next
Hanoi street not yet in the peak hours but to cross the street was still a challenge
For the first day in Hanoi, I dropped my husband to Hanoi Ethnographic museum so he can learn about history and our cultures while my friend and I went to do some shopping for our wedding. According to him, this is one of his favourite places in Hanoi. I include some photos below for you to see and if you want to read more about his experience, you can visit his blog page here
On the second day we walked along the Hồ Tây (west) lake to visit the Trấn Quốc Buddhist pagoda, a very tall tower that overlooks the lake. I used to live around this area before so I really like to take my husband for a short walk to visit this pagoda. My first intention to stay close there was to take him for a walk to see the sunset. It is considered as the best area to enjoy beautiful sunset in Hanoi. Unfortunately, during the time we stayed there, it had been always cloudy so we decided to just go for a short walk to visit the pagoda instead.
Our hotel is on a small street near the lake. The above images were on our way to the pagoda. It is not the best part of Hanoi but I want to show him that they are trying to grow the small plants inside the lake to help clean the water which weren't there 6 years ago. Even though there was still bad smell around but I think it is important to show my husband both beautiful and ugly parts of Hanoi.
It's still early so not yet crowded here
It is a small pagoda so only took us 30 minutes to walk around. Also lots of the words are in ancient Vietnamese so I couldn't read and not able to explain to my husband. So we decided to leave and started to make our way to Hoan Kiem Lake (“the lake of the sword”), in the historical part of the city centre.
There is a famous Taoist pagoda called Đền Ngọc Sơn. It is an old temple built in the middle of Hoan Kiem lake and overlook to the north which is considered as a good direction so you can get the quintessence of the universe, probably based on how the airflow movement align with the land and the direction of the temple.
One of the interesting things we saw there was the two bodies of preserved soft-shelled turtles, which are in danger of extinction, are on display at the temple. Even though I had been living in Hanoi for 6 years, I haven't seen this species in real life before. I remember one of the times people could clearly see the turtle swimming in the lake and near the temple was in 2000. Lots of photos were in TV and newspapers. At that time my grandfather who used to live and work in Hanoi long time ago said whenever the turtle is visible in the lake like that, it means there would be big weather events in the country like heavy rain, storms so my great grandpa wasn't so thrilled when he heard the news. But for a little 10 years old girl, it is a big thing and I couldn't wait to be grown up so I can travel to the city to see the turtle.
In the afternoon, we decided to drop my husband to Hoa Lo prison where he could learn more about Vietnamese war history so my friends and I could visit a dental clinic.
After so many years not driving in Hanoi, it was my first time trying to navigate around and with my husband riding at the back, it was more difficult because he is taller and heavier than me. Anyway he loving it so what else to complain.
For the evening, we met with my close friends for a dinner. It was so fun to see everyone and I felt it like our old times, catching up and hanging out for the whole evening. Although it was difficult to talk with each of them but I tried to spend some quiet moments to look at them all and keep it in my special memory - our best moments together.
At around 10pm, we said goodbye so we can go back to the city centre to celebrate the new year. We had been welcomed quite New Years in New Zealand for 5 years now so I didn't want to miss the craziness moment of Hanoi on the last minutes of the year. It was so fun and felt like magical all the times.
Oh I forgot to show you the best part of Hanoi. As the post is already quite long, I'll share it in another time but just a quick brief about what we ate there. We have a delicious vegetarian meal that completely blown our mind, then I introduce my partner to Cha Ca La Vong (grilled fish in drills eating with fermented shrimp sauce) and egg coffee. He also love Bun Cha (grilled pork and spring rolls with rice noodles and herbs). They are amazing and I would highly recommend to try when you visit the place.
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